A NATION CHALLENGED: NOTEBOOKS

A NATION CHALLENGED: NOTEBOOKS; Sending Warm Thoughts

By THOMAS J. LUECK

Published: November 10, 2001

Amid the flood of donations, now comes something soft and fluffy from Oklahoma City.

'' 'We send you love and kisses,' '' said Kathi Morse, director of bereavement at the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., reading from a note attached to one of the 55 stuffed animals that arrived Tuesday from the Kids' Place, a counseling center in Edmond, an Oklahoma City suburb.

The idea, according Danny Mize, executive director of the Kids' Place, was hatched in the days after Sept. 11 by survivors of the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City. ''One man who lost his wife said notes and drawings helped him a lot, and that led us to stuffed animals,'' he said.

Mr. Mize said that Oklahoma City volunteers have identified 75 bereavement programs in the Northeast that are helping the families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attack. The Nassau County center is one of 32 on the mailing list in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Ms. Morse said the 55 stuffed animals that arrived Tuesday -- bears, puppies and kittens in an assortment of sizes -- came with messages of support and picture postcards inscribed with return addresses by children at an Edmond elementary school.

With 15 children attending Thursday night bereavement sessions at the Roslyn Heights center, and more expected to enroll, Ms. Morse said, parents are being asked to reply immediately to the Edmond children. But handing out the stuffed animals will wait until next Thursday, a week before Thanksgiving.

''Kids who have lost a parent might think they have little to be thankful for,'' she said. ''This will give them something.''